Posts Tagged ‘Orson Welles’

No trouble with Harry

When the chance for a chat with one of Belgium’s finest directors, Harry Kümel, presented itself during the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFFF) 2010, you can be sure that Picturenose’s James Drew (JD) didn’t miss his opportunity to meet the man behind two of the most acclaimed cult horror/sci-fi/fantasy features ever made, Les lèvres rouges (Daughters of Darkness) (1971) and Malpertuis (The Legend of Doom House) (1971).

Read the rest of this entry »

Gods and monsters

Picturenose had the pleasure of meeting renowned Antwerp-born director Harry Kümel during BIFFF 2010 - a little background then on Malpertuis (The Legend of Doom House) (1971), a film which, along with Kümel’s Les lèvres rouges (Daughters of Darkness) (1971), resulted in the director quickly being labelled a master of fantasy and horror.

Read the rest of this entry »

Now then – John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), itself a remake of the Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks/Orson Welles (?) 1951 classic, The Thing From Another World (both of which are adaptations of John W.Campbell’s original short story, Who Goes There?) is perhaps the finest horror-science fiction film ever made. Carpenter’s movie, although it fared badly with critics and at the box office on its original release, has nevertheless gained an enormous cult following over the years, and is now rightly regarded as the classic that it so clearly is. Guess what? There is a ‘companion piece’ prequel on the way – how scared should we be?

Read the rest of this entry »

Stuffing and nonsense

With the festive season just around the corner, Picturenose presents a nostalgic look at a selection of films that you just know will be found somewhere in the depths of the Yuletide TV schedules. Christmas crackers next week, but first up, it’s the gobblers.

Christmas, eh? A time to gather the family round, nibble on a nut or two, pour a glass of something special, and complain about the number of repeats that are, once again, filling up the TV schedules.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…

All this talk on Picturenose (writes Cillian Donnelly) about Ronald Emmerich’s big-budget end-of-the-world thriller 2012 (2009) has prompted me to revisit this 1981 curio – a kitsch docu-drama based on the prophecies of the seer Michel de Nostradame, who is more commonly known as Nostradamus.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kane scrutiny: Still able?

An attempt to stand on the shoulders of giants – a look at Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941), which is enjoying a return to UK cinemas.

Here there be tygers – how to proceed with a ‘review’ of a film that has topped critics’ Top Ten lists virtually since its release, thus making a serious play for the honour of ‘Best Film Ever’?

Read the rest of this entry »

A thing of darkness…

Well, this week will provide a rare chance for certain upper-echelon critics to admit they got it wrong at the time, as they tend to do (get it wrong, that is, not own up and retract) with all the very best horror (Peeping Tom (1960), anyone?) – in a master stroke, presumably to celebrate, erm, the 27 years that have passed since its original release, John Carpenter’s masterpiece of paranoia, suspense, still-incredible S/FX and terror, The Thing (1982), is being re-released in the UK on 11 September.

Read the rest of this entry »